The International Bill of Rights lists and defines the full list of human rights that every person has. Rights can be divided broadly into two categories: civil and political rights; and economic, social and cultural rights. The following is a summary of these universal rights.
(There are some problems with this type of division. See the notes section below for more details.)

Fundamental freedoms of thought, conscience and religion, and opinion and expression

Freedom of peaceful assembly and association

Right to take part in the government of one’s country, directly or through freely chosen representatives

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Right to work

Right to favourable conditions of work

Right to equal pay for equal work

Right to form and join trade unions

Right to an adequate standard of living (including food, clothing and housing)

Right to protection of the family

Right to education

Right to participate freely in cultural life

Right to social security

Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health

Right to benefit from scientific progress

Right to protection of an author’s moral and material interests resulting from scientific, literary or artistic production (ownership and copyright)

Notes

There are some reasons for categorizing rights into these types, because of of differences in the nature of how these rights are realized and how much a government needs to be involved to help realize them. That said, the two categories exist like this mostly because of the history of how these rights were first written, not because the two types are fundamentally different from each other.

A more useful way of categorizing rights is not by the nature of the rights themselves, but instead by the groups of people that are often denied these rights. For example, the category of Women’s Rights includes many rights that are very different in nature, such as the right to vote, the right to education and the right to health. It is more often the case that a particular group (e.g. women, migrants, children) are being denied their rights, and much less often the case that the right to education is being denied to everyone equally, so addressing rights violations tends to focus on groups of people, not just on the right itself. This type of categorization is clear from looking at the list of UN special procedures.
Further reading: OHCHR – Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; OHCHR – Key concepts on ESCRs

About Author

Daniel worked as an HRM intern before becoming a research fellow at KHRF and taking on the role of editor on the HRM project. He is currently an assistant professor at Dongshin University.
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